Ethical Elitism: A Burkean Analysis of the Rhetorical Construction of a Moral Persona in the First Term of President George W. Bush

<p>On November 4, 2004, President George W. Bush won re-election. According to exit polls, a majority of people who voted for Bush over his opponent, Senator John Kerry, did so because they believed that Bush was the “moral values” candidate. In this dissertation, I assess the moral persona that the President rhetorically constructed during his first term in office. To do so, I utilize Kenneth Burke‟s cluster and pentad tools to analyze Bush‟s statements on embryonic stem cell research, 9/11 and the ensuing War on Terror, and same-sex marriage, three issues that the elite press explicitly identified as being “moral values” during Bush‟s first term.</p> <p>The analyses reveal that Bush‟s rhetoric frames the ethical struggle as being between himself and an elite/powerful few others. The majority of Americans are thus stripped of their agent status and the corresponding ability to act and left to feel the effects of a “moral” decision that is made in their absence yet affects their very being. I term this sort of ethics “elitist ethics” as ethics and morality are made to seem like a power struggle between an elite few. In the conclusion I assess the effects of elitist ethics in the public sphere.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Year dc:date.available

2010

Author dc:creator

• Koehn, Veronica Lynn

Contributors dc:contributor

• Christina Foust, Ph.D.
• Linda Bensel-Meyers
• Darrin Hicks
• Dan Lair
• Roy V. Wood

• Cluster analysis
• Elitist ethics
• George W. Bush
• Kenneth Burke
• Morality
• Pentad analysis
• Communication
• Social and Behavioral Sciences

Statement dc:rights

• <p>Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.</p>

Language dc:language

en

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/343

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.du.edu:etd-1342